


the fate of all things

by troubadore



Series: geralt fluff week 2020 [5]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Magic Shenanigans, Fate Swap, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubadore/pseuds/troubadore
Summary: He looks up as those blue cat's eyes open, finding his own, and Geralt begins to say, "Relax, you're safe," but the words are stolen from him as the witcher's brow furrows."Geralt?" he says, full of confusion, and a strange pulse goes through his head, a flash of blue eyes—without slit pupils; he isn't a witcher, he's abard—in his mind."Jaskier." Geralt tastes the name like a familiar treat on his tongue. "What the fuck."orGeralt does magic, Jaskier hunts the monsters, and Yennefer sings about it—or, wait. Is that right?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: geralt fluff week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860493
Comments: 34
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm having a lot of fun with the [geralt fluff week](http://geraltfluffweek.tumblr.com) prompts and for today's prompt of "magic" i decided to do something a little different: a multi-part fate swap au with a twist! 
> 
> also pls bear with me i haven't written a multi-chapter fic in _years_ so this will most likely be updated sporadically as i write it—i have a loose outline for it but it's not written out beforehand—but i'm hoping to update it once a week/once every two weeks until it's done! 
> 
> i don't know how long this will be. it will have a happy ending. it will be mostly fluff since it is, as stated, part of geralt fluff week
> 
> enjoy~!

He wakes slowly, blinking the pull of sleep from his eyes as he lifts his head. The pale rays of morning sunlight pour through the small window in the room, telling him the early hour. His neck aches and he rubs at it, and with a sigh he pushes himself up from his chair and goes to collect more salve. 

His hands are practiced and move with almost no thought from him, and he goes through a mental list of tasks to be completed before his mother returns. She'll be bringing back a few of the ingredients they can't grow themselves, but those aren't needed now—witchers heal well enough on their own. 

He turns back to the sleeping form on the bed and brings the salve over. The witcher''s bare chest rises and falls in rhythmic beats. With gentle hands, Geralt unwraps the cloth from his wounded shoulder, pleased to see it hadn't bled through in the night. 

He dips his fingers in the salve and begins applying it to the slice he'd taken from the wyvern he'd been hunting. Murmuring softly, he feels the rush of his own magic heat the salve, activating its more subtle healing properties, encouraging the wound to close. 

He looks up as those blue cat's eyes open, finding his own, and Geralt begins to say, "Relax, you're safe," but the words are stolen from him as the witcher's brow furrows. 

"Geralt?" he says, full of confusion, and a strange pulse goes through his head, a flash of blue eyes—without slit pupils; he isn't a witcher, he's a _bard—_ in his mind. 

"Jaskier." Geralt tastes the name like a familiar treat on his tongue. "What the fuck." 

Just then, the door bursts open, and Geralt turns to watch Yennefer— _Yennefer?_ —storm into the room, purple eyes ablaze. Her dark hair is in a simple braid over her shoulder and she's dressed in a dark jacket and pants, the least refined he's ever seen her. Unobtrusive, even. Completely unlike her, but it's not even the strangest thing. 

No, the strangest thing is the _lute_ slung over her shoulder. 

_What the fuck._

"Who did you fuck?" she demands, eyes on Jaskier, arms crossed. She seems about ready to turn him into an eel, but—wildly enough—Geralt can't feel her chaos stirring the air. _She doesn't have any._

Jaskier, for his part, holds up his own arms in a placating gesture, eyes wide. "Why are you assuming it's _me_ who's done this? I sleep with married nobles whose spouses at best want me castrated!" He points a finger at Geralt, who is still standing stupefied at what's happening. " _He's_ the one with the track record of sleeping with mages known for cursing people!" 

Yen takes that in, and then Geralt finds himself the subject of that bright, burning gaze as she turns on him. "Who did _you_ fuck?" 

It's so weird, so unexpected, so wildly improbable, that Geralt has come right back around to a strange sort of peaceful acceptance. He makes a face at her and snarks, "You're the last person I slept with. Are you admitting this is your doing?" 

He can see the way she tenses, the urge to lash out with magic to throw him out the window, but nothing happens other than her fingers tightening their grip on her arms. She tosses her head and looks away. 

Jaskier, sitting up, looks between them, then keeps his gaze on Geralt—on his face, on his hair. "That is _so_ weird," he murmurs, and Geralt lifts an eyebrow at him. 

"What is?" 

"Your—" He makes a vague gesture. "Your hair isn't white. It's strange." 

Geralt looks down at himself, catching sight of dark hair from the corner of his eye. He picks some of it up, pulling it around to look at it. Hm. 

"I didn't always have white hair," he says with a shrug. "That was the second round of mutations." 

"Do _I_ have white hair?" Jaskier asks, eyes bright as he reaches up to his own hair—still the same chocolate brown, if a bit longer, curling around his chin. "No. Only one round of mutations for me. I—" 

A strangle look passes over his face, and he shares the look with Geralt. "I remember that much." 

_He remembers the Trials. He's_ lived _the Trials._ Geralt forcefully pushes those thoughts aside—nothing to be done about that now. "Hm." 

A strained, awkward silence falls around them, broken only by the sound of birdsong outside. The sunlight creeps further into the room, lightening it bit by bit. Geralt realizes he still has the salve in his hand, then looks back at the wound on Jaskier's shoulder. It's healing even still, slowly closing up. He'll need an ointment to help prevent scarring and make sure he can use the arm properly in the future. 

Memories tangle in his mind, ones of helping his mother tend to herbs and make poultices for the town butting up against ones of being mid-battle with all manner of beasts, potions coursing through his blood; days at market buying cloth and fruits warped around gentle hands soothing over wounds on his own skin and a warm, rich voice singing to him in gentle candlelight. 

Well. That warm voice is still here at least, he thinks. Jaskier has swung his legs over the side of the bed, sitting up. He looks up at Geralt, and it's so strange to see witcher's eyes in his sweet, soft face, marred only by a single scar through his brow. 

His Cat school medallion hangs around his neck, and Geralt instinctively reaches up to his own throat, feeling a sudden sense of loss to realize he no longer has his own medallion. He swallows thickly and blinks away the sting behind his eyes. 

"Let me finish patching you up," he finally says, breaking the quiet around them all. Yen seems to snap out of whatever thoughts she'd been in, sucking in a breath and turning to stalk out of the room without another word. 

Jaskier watches her go before turning back to Geralt. "Well," he says with forced cheer. "We're really up shit creek with this, aren't we?" 

Geralt hums in agreement and moves to finish tending to his wound. The salve is working its miracles, the rough edges of the claw slice not as red as they had been. Satisfied, he applies an ointment to encourage the muscle to relax and then brings over clean cloth, wrapping Jaskier's shoulder with light touches. 

"Quite the turning of tables, hm?" Jaskier jokes weakly, and he offers Geralt a small smile. It slips away a moment later. "What happened, Geralt? What's going on?" 

It's the question that's been rattling in his brain since Jaskier woke up and called his name when he shouldn't have known it. It shook loose memories of another life— _his real life?_ —and now they need to be shifted through, examined carefully to determine what might be the cause of this. 

Magic, no doubt. Chaos is the root of most problems, he thinks. He ties off the cloth and steps back from Jaskier, cleaning up his supplies almost automatically. It's easy, methodical, and he doesn't even think about it. It's his life, what he's always done. 

_Do witchers ever retire?_

_Yeah. When they slow and get killed._

"I don't know," he says eventually. "We need to—my memories are...jumbled. Overlapping between this life and—the other." 

"Well, I certainly understand that," Jaskier says. Geralt turns and watches him stand and search for his shirt, pulling it on over his head. It still has the remnants of bloodstains in it, though Geralt remembers cleaning it himself during the night. He keeps his eyes on the scars covering Jaskier's skin until the shirt covers them. 

Geralt inhales, a deep-seated reflex, and is once again filled with a sense of loss when the familiar scent of meadow grass and wildflowers isn't present, his senses too dull to pick them out from the faintly pungent aroma of the salve. Part of him says _of course you can't smell him_ and another, deeper part of him says _you should be able to smell him._

It's confusing, and he rubs his temples at the on-coming headache. 

Jaskier's voice is gentle when he says, "Let's...get something to eat, yeah? We can sift through this mess after we've filled our bellies. I've got to get that wyvern head back to town, as well." 

"Your reward," Geralt agrees, and that—that feels normal. Perhaps a bit backwards, since he's usually the one doing the hunting— _No, you're not. You're a druid, you don't see battle like that_ —but normal. 

Nothing about this is normal. 

Jaskier offers him another smile— _he smiles quite a bit for a witcher_ —and Geralt watches as he pointedly leaves his swords and armor against the wall where Yen had tossed them the night before, when he'd told her to undress her wounded companion so he could help. 

_What the actual fuck is going on here._

One thing at a time, he thinks to himself, and follows Jaskier. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't forget that i had this fic to update, exactly, but i certainly lost track of exactly how long it's been since i posted the first part whoops

Yen is in the kitchen as they emerge from the bedroom, arms crossed and body stiff as she glares out the small window above the washbasin. The morning sunlight pours into the space and the beams highlight the soft edge of her clenched jaw. 

Geralt watches as Jaskier seems to instinctively move toward her, then pause, as what he knows is questioned by new— _ old _ —memories, swaying backward as if toward Geralt, but ultimately held in place, unsure. He can tell Jaskier wants to go to her, to comfort her; they've been companions for years so it's only natural. 

Geralt feels a spike of hot jealousy roll through his chest, the thought of  _ He's mine  _ passing through his mind. He pushes it all firmly away. Now isn't the time. 

That burning gaze is on him again, and he meets Yen's glare head on. She's the one to break the uncomfortable silence that's settled around them all. 

"What the fuck did you two do?" she demands. Her glare cuts over to Jaskier, and Geralt sees her soften ever so slightly. "This is a new level of shit even for your rotten luck." 

"We honestly don't know," Jaskier answers with a shrug. "I think—I think we might have been hunting something?" 

He turns his blue gaze on Geralt, searching for reassurance or answers or  _ something,  _ Geralt doesn't know. But he hums in agreement, the vaguest flashes of entering a town, checking the notice board, questioning the people floating through his head. 

"Of course you were," Yen is muttering, looking back out the window. Her stance has eased a bit, though. Something seems to occur to her. "You asked for my help with it." 

"If you're caught up in it," Jaskier says wryly, "we probably did. We're good at dragging innocents into our shit." 

They share a look, something passing between them, and Geralt suddenly misses the way Jaskier would look at  _ him  _ like that, jokes and inside knowledge passing between them that only they were privy to ( _ You don't have inside jokes with a witcher) _ . 

Geralt clears his throat, trying to clear away the knot in it and failing, but now he's got two intense gazes on him, one burning, one soft and gentle— _ familiar.  _ He looks away without saying anything. He's never been good with words in either life, apparently. 

"Well." Jaskier, it seems, has no qualms with words, witcher or not. "We should probably head into town so we can deliver that wyvern's head to the alderman. Make sure he doesn't shortchange you, Geralt, I think he was planning to—"

He cuts himself off as he realizes what, exactly, he's said, then offers a sheepish smile as Yen watches on in amusement. "I mean, ah." 

"It's fine," Geralt says softly. He ignores the warmth blooming in his chest ( _ Jaskier always takes care of you) _ . "We can all go." 

"Right," Jaskier agrees. There's a lingering moment of silence before he awkwardly excuses himself to grab his armor. 

Yen is still watching him. Geralt sighs and meets her gaze. "What." 

"It's weird," she says, and at his raised eyebrow she elaborates, "Since we met and you made that wish, there's always been a pull to you, deep in my gut. But now—I don't feel it anymore." 

She's right, when he lets himself think about it, and he hums in agreement. He's not as drawn to her, though he knows he should be ( _ Should he? _ ). She's still as pretty as ever, and there's definitely a draw about her, but he's mostly unaffected. 

Is it the lack of her own Chaos? Or is it because his life in this world is so intrinsically different? 

"You're a bard," he finds himself saying, and there's something about the idea of  _ Yennefer  _ as a  _ bard  _ that makes him smile and raise his eyebrows. "Interesting." 

"I'm the center of attention," she says, raising her own eyebrows. "I control people's opinions and views through song. I make them believe whatever the hell I want, whether it's real or not. Is that really so different from Chaos?" 

He's never thought of it like that. "You've always wanted everything," he says. "Do you have it yet?" 

"I'm getting there," she says, and she offers him a small smile, something much more gentle than he's used to seeing from her. Something from before the mountain— _ you've never been to the mountains _ —before he'd fucked it all up. 

_ He's going to lose me? He already has.  _

Jaskier comes back then, and Geralt can't help but think he'd lingered in the bedroom on purpose. It doesn't take that long to put on armor. 

Yen turns to him. "Ready, then?" 

"Now that," Geralt says with a wry grin, "is weird." 

"What?" Jaskier looks down at himself. "What's weird?" 

"You, in all black." 

It's the traditional heavyweight armor of the Cat school—similar to his own— _ you're a druid, not a witcher _ —Wolf school armor, with a few more embellishments. There used to be more color variety in witcher armor, he thinks, but black has always hidden blood the best. 

Jaskier's nose scrunches up. "Gods, you're right. No bard in their right mind would show up anywhere in something so drab." 

"I take offense to that," Yen says, hands on her hips and pointedly showing off her own all black ensemble. 

He just gives her a look, and Geralt snorts. "We both know people don't come see you perform because of your  _ outfit,  _ my dear. You know exactly which  _ assets _ of yours make you the most coin." 

Yen juts her chin out in agreement and Geralt shakes his head. 

"Come on," he says. "It's a good hour's trek to town, and we don't want to be carrying around a rotting wyvern's head longer than we have to." 

With no objections, Geralt turns and heads out of the house. The morning air is crisp, the bite of winter creeping in. He pulls his heavy winter coat tighter around his shoulders and slings his bag of tonics to sell over his head. 

Beside the house, in what passes as a stable, a dark brown mare whickers and grazes. Jaskier feeds her a handful of treats from his saddlebag and murmurs softly to her, and Geralt thinks, longingly, of Roach, despite the fact he's never owned any horse with that name. 

His own mare, Basyn, butts her head against him and he smiles at her. "I see you're making friends," he tells her, and she tosses her head in agreement. "Good. Keep her in line, will you?" 

"My Rosalin is a perfect lady," Jaskier huffs, offended. "She'll keep herself in line, thank you." 

Geralt watches in amusement as Rosalin lips at his hair and he has to gently push her away with a firm hand and stern look. "Sure." 

"If we're done comparing whose horse is better?" Yen calls, already halfway down the path leading from the house. "I'd like to start figuring out exactly how to fix this fuck up as soon as possible before the urge to write a ballad about it overcomes me." 

"That's not a bad thing," Jaskier argues as he and Geralt catch up to her. "And you write wonderful ballads! My reputation certainly wouldn't be what it is without you." 

The echoes to his own other life send strange pangs though him. He hates the thought that Jaskier, in this life as a witcher, might have been made to pick between evils he'd rather not choose between at all, and come out worse for it, even with the best intentions. 

_ Does he have his own Renfri, _ Geralt wonders,  _ his own Blaviken he avoids?  _

But perhaps there isn't anything so terrible in his life. He thinks he'd probably have heard of a witcher butchering a town. That kind of story spreads far and wide, even to the most remote of cottages in the woods. 

He should know ( _ No, he shouldn't _ ). 

Geralt and Jaskier glance at each other, and something sharp and hot passes between them, like sparks or lightning skittering over his skin when those blue eyes meet his—the same sensation he'd felt the very first time he saw those eyes looking at him in a tavern, full of curiosity and a little bit of hunger and no fear whatsoever. 

_ I love the way you just sit in the corner and brood.  _

Ignorant to the mess of feelings in his chest, Jaskier offers him a smile, bright and beautiful, and he ducks his head, heat creeping into his cheeks. 

It's going to be a very long hour to town. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/troubadorer) and [tumblr](http://geraltofriviasleftbuttcheek.tumblr.com) for more geraskier~!


End file.
